Will a D3 expansion increase the lvl cap?

I was discussing this with a friend.

I asked him: What's the point of having separate "Paragon" levels? Blizz could have just increased the level cap (to 99, or 160, 200, whatever, it's just a number) instead. Just make level 60 the "pseudo-cap", in the sense that all your abilities/runes are unlocked and that the MF bonus per level starts at lvl 61. That way they are just regular levels, instead of the gimmicky and "gamey" Paragon system (i.e. having to have a blue number in parenthesis beside your level).

He responded: The reason is that the expansion will increase the level cap from 60 to 80. Paragon levelling will freeze at that moment while you reach the new level cap (in other words, the exp you gain will go towards your "true" level from 61 to 80, and then towards your Paragon level once again once you reach 80). The new level cap will introduce new runes, possibly new abilities, and new gear, all with a > 60 level requirement. In other words: like WoW.

My reaction to this was a combination of "oh god, please no" and "this isn't WoW"... but maybe that wouldn't be so bad?

What do you guys think?

1) Will we see a level cap increase in the D3 expansion?

2) If not, what is the advantage of the Paragon system over simply increasing the level cap?

My Gaming Setup | WoW Paladin (retired)"This is not a dress. This is a sacred robe of the ancient psychedelic monks."

1. Yea it will happen. Especially if they want to introduce new abilities into the game. Paragon doesn't have to be linked to lvling. It's a system that only begins to work at max level. So if you change the max level then you don't get paragon xp you get regular xp. Paragon is akin to prestige in CoD.
2. See 1. If they don't actual do new levels, which would be a huge surprise well then the advantage of paragon is that it's a quick and easy way to keep people interested in the game because well they weren't getting any other reward out of it.

1. Yea it will happen. Especially if they want to introduce new abilities into the game.

But why do they want to introduce new abilities into the game? Maybe I just want D3 to be D2 too much, but IIRC, LoD introduced two new classes. However, the existing classes didn't gain any new abilites (other than balancing, synnergies, etc).

Making D3 more than WoW than D2

My Gaming Setup | WoW Paladin (retired)"This is not a dress. This is a sacred robe of the ancient psychedelic monks."

There will probably be a level cap increase with the expansion, just because it's going to continue the story, and to progress the story, imo, you need to get stronger, so leveling again would definitely make sense.

The advantage is that it allows the devs to slowly remove magicfind from gear and instead make it a passive bonus, letting itemization be used for useful stats like dex/str/stam/int. I can't see the magic find/gold find cap increasing though. I'd say the paragon level system will always be capped at 100.

But why do they want to introduce new abilities into the game? Maybe I just want D3 to be D2 too much, but IIRC, LoD introduced two new classes. However, the existing classes didn't gain any new abilites (other than balancing, synnergies, etc).

Because this is the Age of Wowquarius. Seriously, for all the reasons Tommy already wrote. Games like this now have to include MMO features and progression or they won't satisfy the customer base. It's sad, but it doesn't mean that games have to be bad because of it. They are headed in the right direction.

In direct response to new abilities, the current gaming society gets bored very quickly. Things cannot be left stale or else they will quickly be rejected. Everyone is going to want a new damage dealing ability and some shiny new tricks.

But why do they want to introduce new abilities into the game? Maybe I just want D3 to be D2 too much, but IIRC, LoD introduced two new classes. However, the existing classes didn't gain any new abilites (other than balancing, synnergies, etc).

Making D3 more than WoW than D2

The game isn't particularly replay friendly nor does it promote that style of game play. Paragon is one pretty good example of this. I;m not sure how much desire their would be on the part of the remaining population that play the game to go through the entire grind over again even for a new class. Hey you could be right though. It really depends who you think they made this game for. I'm still trying to figure that one out..

Because this is the Age of Wowquarius. Seriously, for all the reasons Tommy already wrote. Games like this now have to include MMO features and progression or they won't satisfy the customer base. It's sad, but it doesn't mean that games have to be bad because of it. They are headed in the right direction.

In direct response to new abilities, the current gaming society gets bored very quickly. Things cannot be left stale or else they will quickly be rejected. Everyone is going to want a new damage dealing ability and some shiny new tricks.

I wouldn't qualify it as sad. Look as I keep saying in all these it depends who they made this game for. You could have made a game for d2 vets and not done it. Its just that game probably wouldn't have had the broad appeal that they wanted. I don't know. It feels like the game simply has no focus and is made to be as broad as possible and in the end is unappealing because of it.

I don't think Diablo has to be bad because of the MMO elements that they've obviously borrowed for it. It's bad for a whole nother set of reasons, oddly enough some of which you figured they'd learned from wow but seemingly ignored. Many they should have learned from LoD but also seeming ignored. Granted their were going to be headaches and problems when you staple warcraft on top of Diablo but at the same time many of those headaches are a result of the devs simple ignoring history and beta feedback as well I should add.

There will probably be a level cap increase with the expansion, just because it's going to continue the story, and to progress the story, imo, you need to get stronger, so leveling again would definitely make sense.

In D2 they managed to continue the story just fine without increasing the level cap. You also did get stronger simply thanks to the new uniques/runewords/etc introduced in LoD.

But I think Kittyvicious may be right. Players today are different than 10 years ago, so MMO-izing Diablo may be the only way to keep it afloat, even if I personally don't agree with it.

---------- Post added 2012-09-20 at 06:18 PM ----------

Originally Posted by TonyIommi

It feels like the game simply has no focus and is made to be as broad as possible and in the end is unappealing because of it.

Hmmm that sounds an awful lot like another game that I used to play....

My Gaming Setup | WoW Paladin (retired)"This is not a dress. This is a sacred robe of the ancient psychedelic monks."

In D2 they managed to continue the story just fine without increasing the level cap. You also did get stronger simply thanks to the new uniques/runewords/etc introduced in LoD.

But I think Kittyvicious may be right. Players today are different than 10 years ago, so MMO-izing Diablo may be the only way to keep it afloat, even if I personally don't agree with it.

---------- Post added 2012-09-20 at 06:18 PM ----------

Hmmm that sounds an awful lot like another game that I used to play....

It's an ARPG not an MMO like cmon people good god, It would literally be one the stupidiest things they can ever do. It would even PISS the entire player base simply because obviously if there's new levels then there's new good items for that level exampe GG items would be worthless. LoD did this with runewords however most of the stuff didn't become worthless.

I'm in GG Gear hell most of the top paragon people are and all of a sudden OMG NEW STUFF CUZ IT'S AN EXPANSION LIKE AN MMO. I pretty much technically just wasted my money since gold in that game IS actually irl money since you can sell it to people

End of story

It pisses me off thinking about it I'm sure Jay wilson wouldn't let that happen

I think there's a very very high chance that an expansion will increase the level cap, and I think it will reset paragon levels. Why? Because while this will piss some people off, it's the best way to do a reset. If nothing changes, there won't be incentive to play the game. If they just made an Act 5 and had it drop better gear, the players that already have amazing gear will just steamroll it and then they have no reason to keep playing for a very small gear upgrade. If they can invalidate our gear though by adding ten new levels, and more importantly, 10 new ilvls, then it effectively hits the reset button on the game.

That will get people playing again, people will want to gear up so they can race for the next paragon level 100, people will want to gear up so they can pvp with the brand new abilities and shit. Basically, from a business standpoint, Blizzard would have to be retarded to not have an expansion increase the level cap.

If Goku's power level increases at the same rate till the end of DBGT as it does till the end of the Frieza saga, as a SS4 Goku would have a PL of roughly 939 Quinoctogintillion. For reference that is a 260 digit number. A PL of 14,600 is required to destroy an earth sized planet. There are about 2 nonillion earths worth of mass in the universe. That means SS4 Goku can destroy the universe about 32 Octosexagintillion times over. There's a reason they made Goku a god at the end of GT.

So how does this work? Will "normal" in the expansion at lv 61 will be as hard as Inferno was at lv 60? How does inferno and other modes even work with an x-pac?

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

... there are lots of different types of players, with different amounts of time to play, and different tastes for the content and difficulty and time commitment they want to give to any of those pieces of content. The person that plays for an hour or so a few times a week is playing the same game as the person that plays five hours every night.....

I think there's a very very high chance that an expansion will increase the level cap, and I think it will reset paragon levels. Why? Because while this will piss some people off, it's the best way to do a reset. If nothing changes, there won't be incentive to play the game. If they just made an Act 5 and had it drop better gear, the players that already have amazing gear will just steamroll it and then they have no reason to keep playing for a very small gear upgrade. If they can invalidate our gear though by adding ten new levels, and more importantly, 10 new ilvls, then it effectively hits the reset button on the game.

That will get people playing again, people will want to gear up so they can race for the next paragon level 100, people will want to gear up so they can pvp with the brand new abilities and shit. Basically, from a business standpoint, Blizzard would have to be retarded to not have an expansion increase the level cap.

Again it all depends who you think they made this game for. If their trying to reach as broad a base of people as possible (which is what they were going for in D3 vanilla) then expect D3 chocolate to have a level increase. Hows that broad base of appeal working out for them though? Not so much eh.

So how does this work? Will "normal" in the expansion at lv 61 will be as hard as Inferno was at lv 60? How does inferno and other modes even work with an x-pac?

I'm assuming it would be rinse, repeat.

You would have all four difficulty levels and progress as before. I can promise you they won't have enough content to level up without doing that anyways. The starting difficulty would have to be tuned around Act 1 Hell to see people through to the end. The increases between acts would probably be as stark as each one in inferno was originally, leading to eventual nerfs.

There's no way that Act 1 of the expansion will be as hard as inferno was, because believe it or not some people still won't have gotten to inferno by the time it comes out. Whether it's because of time or bad play, they want to get $60 from everyone possible.